i88 3 .] 
Recent Literature. 
167 
fair, however, to judge their reappearance by their original character, all 
of them having been carefully revised and to some extent rewritten. The 
improvement is especially manifest in the Tetraonidce , in which certain 
misstatements required correction, and the general tenor of the description 
of cranial characters needed to be freed from some objectionable features, 
particularly the literal interpretation of cranial bones as parts of modified 
vertebrae. This article is furthermore in its present dress embellished 
with numerous wood-cuts loaned by Baird from his “ History of North 
American Birds,” and the Speotyto paper is similarly illustrated. In the 
Grouse family, again, a good deal of matter relating to external characters, 
and even habits and geographical distribution, is profitably introduced. 
The lithographic plates are, we think, the same as before; 14 of the 24 
are devoted to the four memoirs here in mention, the Tetraonidce claim- 
ing 9 of them. 
The appearance of anatomical work on birds in this country is so rare 
an event, and the outlook for that branch of the science, hitherto so 
sadly neglected among us, is still so far from being all that could be 
wished for, that these memoirs would be welcome even were their impor- 
tance and utility less than they really are. The text is a faithful and on 
the whole an accurate description of the objects under designation, and 
the fidelity with which the plates are executed is most commendable. If 
“faithful are the wounds of a friend,” the author will not otherwise regard 
some strictures which we must pass upon the work as a whole, although we. 
are well aware — no one is more thoroughly aware than ourselves! — of 
the obstacles in the way of good scientific work which the Army delights 
to furnish. The circumstances of preparation of most of these articles 
made “breadth” of treatment out of the question, fostered a tendency to 
dwell with prolixity upon non-essential minutiae, and cramped the author 
in those comparisons and generalizations which alone put life in dry 
bones. For the rest, we must risk being thought finical or pedantic in 
finding fault with the literary infelicities which betray a less experienced 
pen than we have no doubt Dr. Shufeldt will duly come to wield. For 
instance, some one inclined to be cynical might call the following sen- 
tence, which concludes the Tetraonidce , an example of “how not to 
do it.” 
“In short, although ornithologists will no doubt always retain these two 
forms \_Cupidonia and Pedioecetes\ in separate genera as the classification 
of birds goes, still it may be well to bear in mind that nearly or quite all 
of the anatomical characters of Cupidonia and Pedicecetes when compared 
together bring these two Grouse nearer to each other than any other two 
forms of the group in our fauna ; so near, in fact, that but little violence 
would be perpetrated by restricting them both to one and the same genus, 
and no doubt there are not a few instances in our present classification of 
birds where forms not so nearly related as these two Grouse are that have 
been retained in one genus” (p. 700). 
The osteology of the Cathartidce , which occupies pp. 727-806, with 
plates xv-xxv, and is further embellished with original wood-cuts, as 
